Why the Shell, Jimmy?

The modern pilgrim embarking on The Way can see the scallop shell at every turn, guiding them on milestone markers and providing a reassuring point in the right direction. Most pilgrims wear the shell, either around their neck or attached to their backpack, making it easy to spot fellow Camino walkers.. All the towns and some of the villages have the scallop design imbedded in the road tiles or raised on the path to indicate the Camino path. But why?

It seems that the scallop shell actually predates St James and Christianity in modern-day Galicia, the last region of the Camino. In Roman Hispania, there was a route known as the Janus Path used by pagans as a born-again ritual and ending in Finisterre at the edge of the Atlantic Ocean (Finisterre literally means End of the Earth (Finis + Terre), when the known world ended. The Janus Path started at The Temple of Venus. Venus, Goddess of Love, was said to have risen from the sea on a scallop shell. Fans of Botticelli and Monty Python already have that image in their heads.

The Roman god Janus himself (for whom the month January is named), is the god of beginnings and endings, transition and transformation – all ideas shared by pilgrimages and discovered on the Camino today, a constant source of renewal and rediscovery. The scallop shell was historically used for gathering water and drinking and as a bowl for collecting gifts of food and for eating.

St. James the apostle was a fisherman before falling in with Jesus and his crowd. After that went horribly wrong, all the apostles spread out to convey what they had learned and try to convert everyone they met to Christianity. James (so it is believed) came to the Iberian penninsula and walked this path, before returning home, only to be beheaded by King Herod.

The story is that James’ headless body was brought back to Galicia to be laid to rest (at Santiago, to which we are walking). But as the boat containing his body approached the coast, a horse with a knight on its back bolted and sent both itself and the knight into the sea. St. James set about producing a miracle in raising both horse and knight, still on the horse’s back, from the sea, from which they emerged covered in scallops.

Another connection between the scallop and St. James was more than a thousand years later, when the Camino pilgrimage was in full swing. The Codex Calixtinus, or Liber Sancti Jacobi, was an illuminated manuscript attributed to Pope Callixtus II and meant to be both a spiritual and travel guide to the Camino. Illustrated with the scallop shell design, pilgrims would return home again (just think, they had to leave home on foot and then return home on foot – and I thought 900km is long!) with a scallop shell as proof they completed the pilgrimage since the shells are indigenous to the Galician coast. By this time (12th Century) scallop shells were sold by the hundreds around the Cathedral of Santiago. It was such a big deal (and dangerous) to complete the pilgrimage that pilgrims were often buried with their scallop shell or had it carved on their tombs as a sort of trophy of their accomplishments on earth.

So the next time you tuck into a dish of Coquilles St. Jacques, know that you are honouring St. James and his Camino!